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Katrina survivors tell their story in Big Spring, Texas

Abilene Reporter News:

It's a story of heroism, a story of heartbreak.

They can laugh about parts of it now, these six survivors safe and dry in a hotel room in Big Spring, the city they now are prepared to call home.

Yet somber reminders remain - a crying infant, sick from living on nothing but rainwater for five days; an elderly man, his legs splotched red by chemical burns; a middle-aged woman who wakes up in a panic when she hears the dripping of the air conditioner.

They remind Nick Laciura that a monster named Hurricane Katrina nearly ripped his family apart.

''I've been breaking down a little bit, crying too, about it,'' he said Wednesday. ''None of our people (in Louisiana) would do nothing for us, but all these people (in Big Spring) will go to the store and buy stuff for us.''

Before the family's arrival in Big Spring came the flood.

It started with a trickle.

...

Ten minutes after Kiern noticed water on the floor of his garage, nothing but his roof was visible above the flood.

Unable to start the boat, Laciura paddled it in blinding rain and hail to the neighbor's house - a two-story structure. With no way to get in, he ripped at the wall with his bare hands, tearing a hole for the family to enter.

The family would leave only twice in the next five days. After two days of drinking rainwater and Gatorade, the family boated to a nearby shelter that had been set up at the local high school before the storm.

...

Kiern received treatment for the chemical burns he received while swimming through oil- and gas-polluted floodwaters.

''Anything we need, these people just go out of their way,'' Nick Laciura said. ''It's hard to find good people who do stuff like this.''

With their houses assuredly destroyed, their possessions likely gone, his family plans to stay in West Texas, a region to which no one in the family has ever traveled.

The decision was easy, Laciura said. A millwright mechanic in Louisiana, he describes himself as a ''jack-of-all-trades'' and already has received a job offer to weld.

His wife noted a stark contrast - people in Big Spring helped immediately, Christine Laciura said, her voice growing angry. Local officials in Louisiana did not. (Emphasis added.)

There is much more. It is well worth the read